january 29, 2002
Media compilation #45: The Never-Ending Aftermath of 9-11
Dear journalist
You will find below various articles of interest which I earnestly recommend to your kind investigative attention.
Have a nice day!
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
CONTENTS
1. CIA complicit on September 11?
2. Congratulations, America. You have made bin Laden a happy man
3. Saudi denounces US agenda behind bombing campaign
4. The Others: What If We Could See the Afghan Dead as We've Seen the September 11 Victims?
5. GW BUSH'S FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE
6. The United States Is In Deep Doodoo
7. THE MOKHIBER-WEISSMAN COLUMN ON CORPORATE POWER
ALSO RECOMMENDED:
Arab world polarizing with west (Jan 26) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26207
Doctors From Israel Give Aid to Arabs (An excellent example of compassion!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/20/international/middleeast/20WEST.html
What's the true historic role of staged-for-media events? http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature.cfm?REF=291
The Viet Nam War and Desert Storm were propelled by faked or non-existent events. What about that suspicious munitions ship found by the Israelis? The Israelis have easily intercepted a ship for some reason crammed openly with munitions. I'm thinking: this is fishy. "It's almost impossible this ship would have escaped detection." (...) "It's crazy and it looks like the whole thing was a setup of some sort."
Human Rights Under Siege Since 9/11
http://www.truthout.com/01.26F.McKinney.911.htm
Bush Won't Identify Business Execs
http://www.truthout.com/01.29A.Bush.GAO.No.htm
1.
From: http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewNote.cfm?REF=1267
CIA complicit on September 11?
An interview with Michael Springman exposes the CIA's links with the terrorist attacks on September 11
January 19, 2002
Ken MacAllister of Vancouver, BC writes:
Michael Springmann worked for the US government for 20 years with the foreign service and consulate. He just went public with the story of his involvement in a large scale CIA operation that brought hundreds of people from the middle east to the US, issued them passports and trained them to be terrorists. Springmann says that the CIA is working closely with Bin Laden and his operatives in Jeddah and has been since 1987. The most haunting implication from this interview is that all of the terrorist acts of late were planned and paid for by the CIA with US taxpayers money so that the US could legitimately bomb the hell out of Afghanistan -- not to "get the Taliban" as the official party line states, but to erase all of the evidence of the US's secret operations in Afghanistan left over from its 10 year war with the Soviet Union in that country.
Based on the new information from Mr. Springmann, it is likely that most of those 600+ people who were "rounded up" within days of the September 11 attacks were actually in the US because the CIA brought them there. It lends credence to the idea that the CIA was also behind the anthrax letters and that is why there was weapons -grade anthrax and why the perpetrator will never be caught.
The interview is riveting, and I urge you to give it a listen.
Hear the interview at http://radio.cbc.ca/programs/dispatches/audio/020116_springman.rm
Springman also appears in a nine minute documentary for BBC's premier current affairs program, Newsnight: Greg Palast's "The CIA and Saudi Arabia: The Bushes and the Bin Ladens". Go at http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/attack22.ram to view the documentary on RealPlayer. Or at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/newsnight/newsid_1645000/1645527.stm to see the transcript.
See also:
What really happened on Sept. 11th? - Part 1 (January 21) http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewMediaFile.cfm?REF=136 Too many loose ends call for the toughest kind of media questions but they're not being asked... yet.
2.
From: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=115680
23 January 2002
Robert Fisk
Congratulations, America. You have made bin Laden a happy man
'We are turning ourselves into the kind of deceitful, ruthless people whom bin Laden imagines us to be'
Shackled, hooded, sedated. Taken to a remote corner of the world where they may be executed, where the laws of human rights are suspended. Sounds to me like the Middle East. Shackled, hooded, threatened with death by "courts" that would give no leeway to defence or innocence. In fact, it sounds like Beirut in the 1980s.
I've written this story before. Last time, I remember writing about the threats to my kidnapped journalist friend Terry Anderson of the Associated Press, tied up, hooded, always threatened by his "Islamist" captors in Lebanon. That was between 1986 and 1991 and Terry - let us remember this distinction - was no man of violence. He was a journalist, a comrade, a friend. But he was most cruelly treated, allowed no contacts with his family, held in cold confinement, threatened with death every bit as absolute as the American military courts that know they hold the fate of al-Qa'ida's men in their hands.
And then I remember the revolting prison of Khiam where Israel locked up its Lebanese adversaries - real and presumed, none tried by a court - and where prisoners were brought, shackled, hooded, sedated, for questioning. Their interrogation included electric torture - electrified metal attached to penis and nipples (there were women prisoners, too) - which could never happen at Guantanamo Bay, as America's Israeli allies taught their Lebanese militia men in 1980. They in turn taught it to their Lebanese Shia militia enemies who used electricity on their captives.
America, Israel's friend, could have closed down this sick, disgusting prison if it had insisted. But Washington remained silent. The Lebanese Shia prisoners were left to face the men who applied electrodes to their testicles. The nation that would later declare a war of good against evil didn't see much wrong at Khiam.
And now, a trip down memory lane. In the 1980s, when I was covering the war in Afghanistan between the brave mujahedin guerrillas and the Soviet occupiers, Arab fighters - armed by the Americans, paid by the Saudis and the West - would occasionally be captured by the Russians or by their Afghan communist satrap allies. For the most part, the Arabs were Egyptians. They would be paraded on Kabul television and then executed as "terrorists''. We called them "freedom fighters". President Reagan claimed that their masters were not unlike the Founding Fathers.
CLIP
Minus the torture, the United States is now doing what most Arab regimes have been doing for decades: arresting their brutal "Islamist" enemies, holding them incommunicado, chained and hooded, while preparing unfair trials. President Mubarak of Egypt would approve. So would King Abdullah of Jordan. So would the Saudis, whose grotesque, hopelessly unfair system of Islamic "justice" would be familiar to America's prisoners. The jails of Saddam would be far worse - let us keep things in proportion - but in most of the Arab world and Israel, al-Qa'ida would receive similar treatment.
And whether we like it or not, many Saudis believe that American troops are occupying their country, that the very presence of US soldiers in the Kingdom is a crime. King Fahd, of course, invited the Americans into Saudi Arabia in 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. President Bush senior promised the Arabs they would leave when the threat of Iraqi occupation was over. But they are still there. Several years ago, I reported in The Independent that Crown Prince Abdullah - the effective ruler now that the King is so badly incapacitated - wanted the Americans to leave. Much jeering there was from American commentators. But now the Washington Post, no less, has reported that the Saudis want the Americans to quit and the commentators are silent. Not so US Secretary of State Colin Powell. For him, the American presence in Saudi Arabia may last until the world turns into "the kind of place we dreamed of''. American troops in Saudi are not only a deterrent to Saddam, he said at the weekend, they are a "symbol'' of American influence.
Could al-Qa'ida have a more potent reason for continued resistance? The "occupation" of Saudi Arabia remains the cornerstone of Osama bin Laden's battle against the United States, the original raison d'etre of his merciless struggle against America. And here is Mr Powell proving, in effect, that Washington had ulterior motives for sending him into the Gulf. When he added that "we shouldn't impose ourselves on the Government beyond the absolute minimum requirement that we have", the phrase "beyond the absolute minimum" tells it all. The United States will decide how long it stays in Saudi Arabia - not the Saudis; which is exactly what Mr bin Laden has been saying all along.
Now we learn that US troops arrested six Arabs when they were released from a prison in Bosnia. The Bosnians announced that, since the Americans would not disclose the evidence that might be used against them in a trial - to protect US "intelligence sources'' - the men should be released from their Bosnian prison. Which they were - only to be seized by the Americans. And what did the Washington Post tell us in all seriousness? That, the operation was reportedly conducted by US troops acting independently of the Nato-led force (in Bosnia).''
Really? Is the Washington Post that stupid? Are we? Is that what law and order is all about? Yes, the West is fighting a cruel enemy. Anyone who has read the full video statement by Osama bin Laden in December must realise that the war against him - indeed the conflict in Afghanistan - has only just begun. But already we are turning ourselves into the kind of deceitful, ruthless people whom Mr bin Laden imagines us to be. Shackled, hooded, sedated. Prepared for a trial without full disclose of evidence. With a possible death sentence at the end, we are now the very model of the enemies Mr bin Laden wants to fight. He must be a happy man.
3.
From: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0201/21/world/world4.html
The Guardian, Agence France-Presse
Saudi denounces US agenda behind bombing campaign
21/01/2002
By Ewen MacAskill in London
A senior Saudi Arabian former diplomat has charged the United States with seeking to control Afghanistan and contain Pakistan's nuclear program and Iran, as speculation grows that Washington could lose its most vital Arab support base.
In an almost unprecedented criticism of US foreign policy, Mohammad al-Oteibi, the former Saudi ambassador to Kabul, said Osama bin Laden "is only a card in the game played by the United States and of which it has convinced the world to justify intervention in Afghanistan".
"If the United States had wanted to arrest bin Laden, they could have done so easily without taking the trouble to launch this fanciful war ... they could have caught him long ago," he said.
The response to the September11 attacks in the United States was intended "to impose [American] hegemony on [Afghanistan] and to set [Americans] up there to achieve their objectives" in Asia, the former envoy said.
These objectives included containing "the threat of the Pakistan nuclear program and Iran", as well as "the exploitation of the riches of Afghanistan and the republics of central Asia", Mr Oteibi told a London-based Saudi-owned newspaper.
His comments followed reports that Saudi Arabia's rulers were preparing to ask the US to pull its forces out of the kingdom because they have become a political liability. Any such move would throw US strategy in the Middle East into disarray.
The White House and the US State Department insist the military arrangement between the two countries is still working. The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said President George Bush "believes that our presence in the region has a very helpful and stabilising effect".
Relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, its closest Arab ally but also with close ties to bin Laden, have been severely strained since September 11.
The US is reluctant to withdraw its 4500 troops from the Prince Sultan air base, south of the capital, Riyadh, because it could be perceived as a propaganda victory for bin Laden, who often protested at the presence of non-believers so near the main Muslim holy sites.
But the increasingly brittle and vulnerable ruling House of Saud is nervous about an internal revolt by bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network and other extremist militants, and has been publicly loosening its links with Washington.
The huge Prince Sultan air base played a crucial logistical role in the bombing of Afghanistan. Withdrawal would upset the military balance in the Middle East by providing a boost to the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. US aircraft based in Saudi Arabia regularly bomb along the Iraqi border as part of its policy of containment of Saddam.
Many Americans have been upset with Saudi Arabia because it is bin Laden's home country and 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the September11 attacks were from the kingdom. Saudi media have reported that about 200 Saudis have been captured in Afghanistan fighting with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The kingdom is volatile, with a stagnant economy, high unemployment, no democratic outlets and King Fahd unable to crack down on militant clerics.
4.
From: http://commondreams.org/views02/0125-03.htm
To be published in the February 14, 2002 issue of The Nation
The Others: What If We Could See the Afghan Dead as We've Seen the September 11 Victims?
by Howard Zinn
Every day for several months, the New York Times did what should always be done when a tragedy is summed up in a statistic: It gave us miniature portraits of the human beings who died on September 11--their names, photos, glimmers of their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, how friends and loved ones remember them. As the director of the New-York Historical Society said: "The peculiar genius of it was to put a human face on numbers that are unimaginable to most of us.... It's so obvious that every one of them was a person who deserved to live a full and successful and happy life. You see what was lost."
I was deeply moved, reading those intimate sketches--"A Poet of Bensonhurst...A Friend, A Sister...Someone to Lean On...Laughter, Win or Lose..." I thought: Those who celebrated the grisly deaths of the people in the twin towers and the Pentagon as a blow to symbols of American dominance in the world--what if, instead of symbols, they could see, up close, the faces of those who lost their lives? I wonder if they would have second thoughts, second feelings. Then it occurred to me: What if all those Americans who declare their support for Bush's "war on terrorism" could see, instead of those elusive symbols--Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda--the real human beings who have died under our bombs? I do believe they would have second thoughts.
There are those on the left, normally compassionate people whose instincts go against war, who were, surprisingly, seduced by early Administration assurances and consoled themselves with words like "limited" military action and "measured" response. I think they, too, if confronted with the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the war in Afghanistan, would have second thoughts.
True, there are those in Washington and around the country who would not be moved, who are eager--like their counterparts elsewhere in the world--to kill for some cause. But most Americans would begin to understand that we have been waging a war on ordinary men, women and children. And that these human beings have died because they happened to live in Afghan villages in the vicinity of vaguely defined "military targets," and that the bombing that destroyed their lives is in no way a war on terrorism, because it has no chance of ending terrorism and is itself a form of terrorism. But how can this be done--this turning of ciphers into human beings? In contrast with the vignettes about the the victims featured in the New York Times, there are few available details about the dead men, women and children in Afghanistan.
We would need to study the scattered news reports, usually in the inside sections of the Times and the Washington Post, but also in the international press--Reuters; the London Times, Guardian and Independent; and Agence France-Presse. These reports have been mostly out of sight of the general public (indeed, virtually never reported on national television, where most Americans get their news), and so dispersed as to reinforce the idea that the bombing of civilians has been an infrequent event, a freak accident, an unfortunate mistake.
Listen to the language of the Pentagon: "We cannot confirm the report...civilian casualties are inevitable...we don't know if they were our weapons...it was an accident...incorrect coordinates had been entered...they are deliberately putting civilians in our bombing targets...the village was a legitimate military target...it just didn't happen...we regret any loss of civilian life." "Collateral damage," Timothy McVeigh said, using a Pentagon expression, when asked about the children who died when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. After reports of the bombing of one village, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said, "We take extraordinary care.... There is unintended damage. There is collateral damage. Thus far, it has been extremely limited."
The Agence France-Presse reporter quoting her said: "Refugees arriving in Pakistan suggested otherwise. Several recounted how twenty people, including nine children, had been killed as they tried to flee an attack on the southern Afghan town of Tirin Kot." Listening to the repeated excuses given by Bush, Rumsfeld and others, one recalls Colin Powell's reply at the end of the Gulf War, when questioned about Iraqi casualties: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in." If, indeed, a strict definition of the word "deliberate" does not apply to the bombs dropped on the civilians of Afghanistan, then we can offer, thinking back to Powell's statement, an alternate characterization: "a reckless disregard for human life."
CLIP
The New York Times was able to interrogate friends and family of the New York dead, but for the Afghans, we will have to imagine the hopes and dreams of those who died, especially the children, for whom forty or fifty years of mornings, love, friendship, sunsets and the sheer exhilaration of being alive were extinguished by monstrous machines sent over their land by men far away. My intention is not at all to diminish our compassion for the victims of the terrorism of September 11, but to enlarge that compassion to include the victims of all terrorism, in any place, at any time, whether perpetrated by Middle East fanatics or American politicians.
In that spirit, I present the following news items (only a fraction of those in my files), hoping that there is the patience to go through them, like the patience required to read the portraits of the September 11 dead, like the patience required to read the 58,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial.
CLIP
Another Times reporter, C.J. Chivers, writing from the village of Charykari on December 12, reported "a terrifying and rolling barrage that the villagers believe was the payload of an American B-52.... The villagers say 30 people died.... One man, Muhibullah, 40, led the way through his yard and showed three unexploded cluster bombs he is afraid to touch. A fourth was not a dud. It landed near his porch. 'My son was sitting there...the metal went inside him.' The boy, Zumarai, 5, is in a hospital in Kunduz, with wounds to leg and abdomen. His sister, Sharpari, 10, was killed. 'The United States killed my daughter and injured my son,' Mr. Muhibullah said. 'Six of my cows were destroyed and all of my wheat and rice was burned. I am very angry. I miss my daughter.'"
CLIP - Read numerous other such harrowing stories reported at http://commondreams.org/views02/0125-03.htm
5.
Subject: GW BUSH'S FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE
THE FOLLOWING IS MERELY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG...
In George W. Bush's First year in office he:
1. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.
2. Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
3. Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training.
4. Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
5. Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
6. Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who would readily fire-up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would-be Hispanic voters.
7. Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii (San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2001).
8. Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks.
9. Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws.
10. OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and foresting.
11. Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure to the post of United Nations Ambassador.
12. Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest conservation.
13. Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
14. Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
15. Suspended rules that would require hardrock miners to clean up sites on Western public lands.
16. Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program for public housing.
17. Proposed to eliminate a federal program, designed and successfully used in Seattle, to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
18. Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
19. Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
20. Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
21. Cut program to provide childcare to low-income families as they move from welfare to work.
22. Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
23. Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing.
24. Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure - to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
25. Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
26. Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
27. Rescinded the rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
28. Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety.
29. Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, the waste gas that contributes to global warming.
30. Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
31. Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach.
32. Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
33. OK'd Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast of eastern Florida.
34. Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil and drilling.
35. Proposes to re-draw boundaries of nation's monuments, which would technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
36. Gutted White House AIDS Office.
37. Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate workers's rights and safeguards for the environment.
38. Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments.
39. Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior.
40. Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
41. Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
42. Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness.
43. Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research projects.
44. Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
45. Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah.
46. Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit.
47. Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
48. Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
49. Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants." (Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press.")
50. Appointed Diana "There is no gender gap in pay" Roth to the Council of Economic Advisers. (Boston Globe, March 28, 2001.)
51. Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
52. Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect.
53. Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get credit cards.
54. Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children.
55. Is pushing for development of small nuclear arm to attack deeply buried targets and weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
56. Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act - to federal appeals court judgeship.
57. Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
58. Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which taught School children about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship.
59. Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
60. Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - for the number-two job at the Environmental Protection Agency.
61. Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the separation of church and state - to a federal judgeship.
62. Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
63. Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars.
64. Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to head SEC.
65. Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs - for Drug Czar. (Washington Post, May 16, 2001.)
66. Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - for Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
67. Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science 68. Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
69. Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents.
70. Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
71. Nominated Ted Olson - who has repeatedly lied about his involvement with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton - for Solicitor General.
72. Nominated Terrance Boyle - foe of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
73. Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction. (Washington Post, May 18, 2001.)
74. Proposes to give government the authority to take private property through eminent domain for power lines.
75. Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
76. Plans on serving genetically engineered foods at all official government functions.
77. Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck and appointed a timber industry lobbyist.
6.
The United States Is In Deep Doodoo
From the United States Congressional Record - March 17, 1993 - Vol. #33, page H-1303 -
Speaker - Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House:
"Mr. Speaker, we are here now in chapter 11. Members of Congress are official trustees presiding over the greatest reorganization of any Bankrupt entity in world history, the U.S. Government. We are setting forth hopefully, a blueprint for our future. There are some who say it is a coroner's report that will lead to our demise." CLIP
There has been some shuffling around to try to conceal the real scope of the problem. Over the last several years, the Federal Government has been sending less tax money back to the states than it takes in in taxes. This means that the states have to borrow MORE money to cover their obligations. The net result is that the debt is being transferred to the states, to conceal its true size. The government will easily admit to a $3 trillion "publicly held" debt, grudgingly concede that it's "unfunded liability" brings that number to almost $7 trillion, but the real hard truth is that total government debt, state and federal, is now over $14 trillion dollars, or about 50,000 for every man, woman, and child inside the United States. Since 1960, the taxpayers have shelled out $15 trillion in interest payments alone, while the principal continues to rise. CLIP
7.
From: EON <opt2000@veriomail.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2002
THE MOKHIBER-WEISSMAN COLUMN ON CORPORATE POWER
The multinational corporation is the most powerful institution of our time, dominating not only global economics, but politics and culture as well. The enormous influence of the corporation notwithstanding, the mechanisms of corporate control and the details of corporate abuses remain largely hidden from public perception. The purpose of the column "Focus on the Corporation" is be to rectify this informational shortcoming, to report and comment critically on corporate actions and plans, from particularized abuses to broad trends. Written with a sharp edge and occasional irreverency, the Mokhiber-Weissman column covers:
The double standards which excuse corporations for behavior (e.g., causing injury, accepting welfare) widely considered criminal or shameful when done by individuals;
Globalization and corporate power;
Trends in corporate economic blackmail, political influence and workplace organization;
Industry-wide efforts to escape regulation, silence critics, employ new technologies or consolidate business among a few companies;
Specific, extreme examples of corporate abuses: destruction of communities, trampling of democracy, poisoning of air and water;
Particular issues, such as tort reform, of across-the-board interest to business; and
The corporatization of our culture.
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman are uniquely well positioned to author such a column. Mokhiber, one of the nation's leading authorities on corporate crime, is the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter, a legal weekly, and the author of Corporate Crime and Violence: Big Business Power and the Abuse of the Public Trust. Weissman is the editor of Multinational Monitor, the leading source of critical reporting on corporate power. Mokhiber and Weissman have published articles on corporate power in numerous newspapers, magazines, journals and books.
Find out more at: http://www.corporatepredators.org/
--
Mary Beth Brangan
James Heddle EON - The Ecological Options Network
"What's Working Where, Worldwide"
